Use Google Maps as Default with Siri on iPhone

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By default, Siri opens up the default apple maps when you ask for directions in your iPhone. Apple maps is certainly not the best one out there now and has been widely criticized for its flaws. Succeeding that, Apple CEO him self came with an apology letter in which, he promised apple users a high standard maps which they are now working on. Meanwhile he suggested the ios users to use some of the better standard mapping services provided by Bing, MapQuest, Nokia and Google. Google Maps in one of the best solutions you could use now and its free. So if you’d like Siri to use Google maps for getting directions on your on your iOS 6 updated iPhone, then here’s how.

The solution in simple, you just need to add in via transit while asking for directions to Siri.

For example “ Get directions to nearest Apple Store via transit ” would open up a list of map services which includes Google Maps and you’d need to tap on it to get the directions.

It would switch to Transport Apps and you’d see Google Maps being included in the list with the link to the Route. Just tap on it and Google Maps will open up with the directions.

If you’d like to see it in action, watch the following video.

Though this is not a Hands-Free Way or not simple as saying “ Get directions to [location]”, this servers the purpose of using Google Maps via Siri. It is unsure whether apple would keep this feature on their devices, but they would at least prolong this until come up with their own better solution which offers transit and walking directions.

Opening Map Links on Google Maps by Default [Jailbreak Tweak]

If you’ve got a jailbroken device then ‘mapsopener’ tweak from cydia will help you set Google Maps as default app on your iphone.

Once installed, the app would force all the links to maps to open via Google Maps.

It takes care of almost all the map links to be opened up via Google maps, except for the address links in Contacts.

As the Google Maps app for iPhone doesn’t integrate itself with the iOS ecosystem, you need to find alternate workarounds to make it work the way you like. Though we don’t have a perfect solution for this right now, these simple work around’s would definitely help you make good use of the app.